Secretary of State Marco Rubio is rolling out an AI-driven “Catch and Revoke” initiative to strip visas from foreign nationals—particularly students—suspected of supporting Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials told Axios.
The program, which leverages artificial intelligence to scan tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts for pro-terrorism content, marks a bold escalation in policing foreign nationals’ speech and conduct under President Donald Trump’s administration.
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The U.S. Department of State plans to harness AI to pinpoint students showing support for Hamas, especially after the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Axios reported.
The technology will comb through posts for evidence of “terrorist sympathies”—like endorsements of the attack—that could trigger visa revocations.
Violent pro-Hamas protests swept dozens of U.S. campuses after the attack, often involving illegal encampments, disrupted classes, and harassment of Jewish students. Trump has vowed to quash these “antisemitic demonstrations,” a promise Rubio is now operationalizing.
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The effort digs deeper than social media. Officials are probing internal databases for visa holders arrested but not deported under Biden, alongside news reports and lawsuits from Jewish students citing unpunished antisemitic acts at anti-Israel protests.
A review of 100,000 Student Exchange Visitor System entries since October 2023 found “literally zero visa revocations” during Biden’s tenure despite arrests or suspensions, one official said, decrying it as a “blind eye attitude.”
The State Department is syncing with Justice and Homeland Security in a “whole of government” approach.
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Rubio’s authority traces to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, a power he pushed as a senator post-October 7. “We see people marching … calling for Intifada, celebrating what Hamas has done…Those people need to go,” he said then.
Trump amplified this in a January 30 White House fact sheet tied to an anti-Semitism executive order: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests … we will find you, and we will deport you.” A January 20 order targets visa holders with “hateful ideology” threatening security, a pledge he reiterated on Truth Social: “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”
The campus chaos—multi-week encampments and harassment—prompted federal probes finding universities like Columbia and NYU often failed to curb violence or punish offenders, sometimes even tolerating antisemitism.
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